Joe Hisaishi (‘The Boy and the Heron’ composer) reveals the hardest part of the film to score [Exclusive Video Interview]

When he was composing the music for the new Hayao Miyazaki film, “The Boy and the Heron,” Joe Hisaishi reveals that the hardest part for him to compose was the scene in which Mahito is in the birthing room while someone is delivering a baby. “Usually, in Japan, a boy like Mahito would not be allowed to enter such a room. So, how to incorporate his entering in that room into the music was difficult for me,” he tells Gold Derby during our recent webchat (watch the exclusive video interview above). In the end, Hisaishi drew from his own instruments to get the right music for the scene. “Finally I decided on using just my own piano, so I was able to overcome the difficulties for that scene and I think it created a good tension for that scene and it ended up being one of my favorite parts of the film.”

“The Boy and the Heron,” which is being released by GKIDS in the U.S., centers on a 12-year-old boy named Mahito during the final years of World War II. After his mother dies in a hospital fire and his father remarries to his late wife’s sister, Mahito encounters a mysterious heron that leads him to discovering a new world occupied by the living and the dead. The film has been a huge box office success in the U.S., debuting at the top of the box office its first week of release. The film won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature this past Sunday and Hisaishi was nominated for Best Original Score. He also recently made the Oscar shortlist for Original Score.

Hisaishi and Miyazaki’s working relationship goes all the way back to 1984 when he provided the score for “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” and he says that keeps him returning to work with Miyazaki is the incredibly high quality of the work that he produces. “You have a sense of world within his films and, consequently, his worldview shows.” This extends to the mood he takes in making the music for these movies. “In order to be able to use that, I take a very serious approach to composing the music and I find that I’m able to do what I have never done before in terms of writing music for Miyazaki films.”

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